Oh no no no... My Freezer :(

[Ali]

We have a chest freezer in the garage for when we buy meat in bulk and when I have breastmilk to store in bulk :shifty. I just went out to get some ice and everything had melted! Thankfully we are between meat orders, so there was only about $30 worth of food in it, but UGH! I figured out that the outlet it's plugged into has one of those buttons that pops out - circuit breaker-type thingys like in kitchens and bathrooms. We had some lightning the other night and I guess that did it. Now I have to keep tabs on that and stuff everything I can into the small freezer when we go out of town, I guess. Anyway, just venting mostly, but I was wondering if anyone has an idea for being able to tell if your freezer defrosted and refroze (is that a word? :giggle) I was thinking what if I didn't know it did that and somehow turned itself back on and we be eating spoiled refrozen food. This time it was obvious because everything totally melted and it did not turn back on.

Thanks for listening. Off to go :hissyfit a little more!

[KatieMae]

:jawdrop Thank God you didn't have a full load of food! :phew

As for the refrozen food question - I would look for ice crystals inside the packages of food. When food melts, the water comes out of it, so if you have a buildup of water - or water vapor even - and it refroze, there would be a layer of ice or at least crystals inside the package.

[jojola]

Put ice cubes in a plastic bag. That way you can easily tell if the freezer's melted and re-frozen.

I'm sorry you had such a mess to clean up! Glad it wasn't a lot of food!

[DeenyB]

Ughhhh what a pain. i feel your pain....we HAD our freezer plugged into a gfci too, and I asked dh to fix it (an electrician).
He just changed the outlet to a non gfci so it wouldnt trip anymore. I asked him if our freezer was more prone to getting fried from lightening without the gfci, and he said no, just because you have a gfci it would still fry.He explained it to me in his technical terms (current, conduction etc etc ) LOL But the main point he said was that a regular outlet would fix the issue :shrug he's the master electrician..LOL

So if you know someone who can change it out to a regular outlet, it wont trip anymore.

[KatieMae]

Put ice cubes in a plastic bag. That way you can easily tell if the freezer's melted and re-frozen.


Ahh, yes, very clever idea. Way to think outside of the ice-box :giggle

[RealLifeMama]

Oh, thank goodness you did not lose too much!
That is one of my big fears about buying half a side of beef or something.

[klpmommy]

a gfi plug won't reset itself so if it trips you would know b/c it would have to be reset.

:hug2 That would be so upsetting!!!